Roasted Beet & Feta Dip

January 4, 2015

Gluten-free | Vegetarian

Well guys, here I post… from the twilight zone. Yes that’s right… it is a strange day when I’m raving about BEETS. Let me explain and whether you’re a hater or not… this story has something for everyone. I have notoriously stayed away from this purple vegetable since I was a kid and my mother would beg me to eat them. I just refused… why would I eat something that tastes like DIRT? As I grew up and my taste buds matured, and there wasn’t much I didn’t like… this still remained on that small list of things I just don’t like, and it was starting to bug me. After talking with some friends who do like beets (I have crazy friends, I know!), they persuaded, and perhaps even dared me to just give it another try. I was told roasting them is the best with some goat cheese… so while I may have been stubborn about these in the past, I was now persistent to want to give them a second chance. And, a dare is a dare. Your tastes change every 7 years, right? Or something.

Fast forward to me finding some very pretty ones recently at the farmer’s market in Union Square here in NYC and looking up how to roast these babies. I found a very helpful reference from the Kitchn here. And so it began… after all they are MEGA healthy and that color?… you have to give them that much. I was pretty vested in making this into something I could eat. New Year, trying new things… here we go.

I roasted these for about an hour in tin foil, peeled off the skin, chopped them up and tried a tiny piece… YEP. Just as I remembered them when I was a kid. Although I didn’t whine as much, weird. Anyhoo, I had a plan – mix them which a bunch of things I do like to tone the flavor down and see how it goes. And so the dip was born. Goat cheese they said? Well I had plenty, Feta in particular… so that found it’s way into the food processor along with tahini and garlic and VOILA. If by magic, these roasted beets made a gorgeous magenta-colored, DELICIOUS dip. Yes it absolutely still tastes like beets… but in a very good way, a way that I LIKE. Chilling the dip makes it even better. It’s like a super fancy cheese dip, but prettier! I dipped some corn tortilla chips I had handy and was pretty smitten with myself.

Moral of the story is, try something new, and try it all the way! I was happy to have mostly overcome this beet hatred. I doubt I’ll be eating them plain just yet… but this was a killer first step. So, for the beet haters who want so badly to like them… try this as a first step, if you still don’t like them, hey you tried and at the very least it will die your fingers pink… and that’s kinda cool. For the beet lovers… bon appetit!

Ingredients

2 roasted beets

¼ cup feta cheese or goat cheese

2 tbsp tahini

2 garlic cloves

dash salt, pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 400f degrees. Roast the beets: Slice beets from their stems, leaving a little bit of the stem left so you can grip it in later steps. Scrub and clean the beat and pat dry, then wrap in tin foil, place on a baking sheet and roast for approx. 50 minutes. Beets are done when you can poke with a fork easily.

Let beets cool for a couple of minutes and either with the side of a fork or your fingers, peel off the thin layer of skin and you can now remove the remaining pieces of the stem. Slice the beets and set aside for a few minutes to cool.

Assemble the cheese, tahini and garlic in a food processor and add the beets. Add a dash of salt and pepper to taste (feta is already salty so only a little!) and blend until evenly distributed (watch those garlic chunks).

Comments

oh, i love beets! plus they’re the best way to make red food colouring for everything from red velvet cake to pink icing to

funny, my mom and i were just talking about how your taste buds (and apparently, your psychology, according to some astrological theory she was reading, i’m not sure of the reference though) changes every seven years. actually, apparently women’s changes every seven years and men’s every eight years…

The color of this roasted beet and feta dip looks splendid! It’s been such a long time since I’ve had beets, honestly. And you mentioning Union Square makes me wish we didn’t have all this snow, it makes me wish summer was here again! Thanks for sharing this dip!